Cincinnati Zoo Gorilla shot

zooman said:
What responsibility do the parents have!

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Without knowing yet the full details of what happened here, I would suggest that those who are taking to social media to condemn the parents- and there are a lot of them! - have possibly never raised children themselves. However good parents are at their jobs, however careful, mistakes do happen: a child slips away, attention is lost for a few minutes - and, 99.9% of the time nothing untoward occurs. Occasionally, as here, there are tragic consequences.

Of course, it may be that the parents were negligent, that they encouraged bad behaviour, that they are, in some way, to blame. But to assume that this is the case without being in full possession of the facts is, I think, intemperate.
 
sooty mangabey said:
Without knowing yet the full details of what happened here, I would suggest that those who are taking to social media to condemn the parents- and there are a lot of them! - have possibly never raised children themselves. However good parents are at their jobs, however careful, mistakes do happen: a child slips away, attention is lost for a few minutes - and, 99.9% of the time nothing untoward occurs. Occasionally, as here, there are tragic consequences.

Of course, it may be that the parents were negligent, that they encouraged bad behaviour, that they are, in some way, to blame. But to assume that this is the case without being in full possession of the facts is, I think, intemperate.
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Some places are reporting that the kid told the parents that he was gonna go into the exhibit. I don't know if this is true or not.

But yeah we should wait until everything is pretty much confirmed and not just jump to conclusions. Most people on Reddit were saying they should've shot the kid and/or his parents and let the Gorilla live. I'm not even kidding.
 
It would be interesting to see any footage from other visitors at the sight, as a lot of people can't walk or drive without a mobile phone/ camera clasped to their person/car It may not be to hard to see things in a different light.
I hope the child realises the result of his actions at some future date and acts accordingly.

I can't help but think of Jambo at jersey zoo in the same situation, and his caring attitude, If the child wasn't moving, may be the outcome would have been different, who knows. All very sad killed in the place he should have been safest. bet the A.R. lobby are pleased as punch over it, calling it all the zoos fault.
 
A shocking incident. While I understand the questions about the responsibility of the adults accompanying the boy: I think the design of the enclosure and barrier should also come into question. How could the child squeeze through the fence? Should the planting between the fence and the moat have been dense hedge of something like a spiny Berberis?

Alan
 
This is a difficult subject, but I fear that the gorilla and the recent case of the lions shot in Chile are an example of the 'humans are more important than animals' scenario. What if a child had entered an enclosure of the only captive group of Cross River gorillas or Javan rhinoceroses? Should the animals be shot to preserve a representative of the most abundant large mammal on the planet?
I remember a film called 'Fierce Creatures', where Rollo Lee decided that Marwood Zoo should only keep dangerous animals and get rid of all animals not meeting those requirements. Some zoos seem to be partly following this concept, with large exhibits dedicated to dangerous animals, while the collection of 'boring' animals is depleted. The chances of dangerous animals being released into the wild are becoming more remote each year and I wonder if zoo have too many dangerous animals and if cases of people coming into contact with lions, tigers, gorillas, elephants and other dangerous animals are becoming more common and could lead to a backlash against zoos.
 
I can't help but think of Jambo at jersey zoo in the same situation, and his caring attitude, If the child wasn't moving, may be the outcome would have been different, who knows.
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Most people who have seen the famous video of the Jambo/boy incident interpret it as Jambo 'protecting' the boy from the other Gorillas, the press reported it the same way and that's the story we still hear today. I believe in fact he showed a mixture of curiosity and puzzlement at first, but was blocking the other Gorillas from coming closer to protect them, rather than the boy. When Levan Merrit(the boy) regained consciousness and started to move and cry, Jambo appeared more nervous and moved away.

In this recent tragic episode at Cincinnati, the video shows the male Gorilla seemed understandably torn between his protective attitude and something more aggressive- the problem with such a volatile animal is he could suddenly go into 'display mode' and so seriously injure or even kill him. In fact shots of him 'dragging' the boy in the water have apparently been removed from the video but seem to indicate he was becoming excited and perhaps more aggressive so I think the Zoo probably did the only thing they could in the circumstances.

How the child got in there is a different issue altogether of course. It shouldn't be possible for a child to get into the enclosure but these things do happen- this is the third Gorilla/child related incident I can think of -Jersey/Brookfield/now Cincinnati.
 
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Thing is if the pen is open topped chances are most people could get inside; esp kids who are generally more active and fitter than adults and thus more able to climb up wire [small hands/feet help too].

People often want an uninterrupted view of the animals, so glass (gets dirty on both sides) and wire are unpopular. Thus the rise in overthe top views where a high wall acts as the barrier; but allows a generally clear view of the animals within.

It sounds like he slipped through general warning bars designed to prevent people getting close to the edge and then slipped/fell over the edge of the main wall. Thing is if he's the first to push through that kind of fencing there has likely been no call nor need to improve security. Higher security costs and whilst I'm not saying zoos take risks taking short-cuts - they will generally only put into place security that they have to of a standard that is proven to work.

Of course after this the zoo will likely improve security, even though its unlikely anyone would try again, they will have to.



Shame I can't seem to find any pictures of the enclsure [news has somewhat swamped the search engines with news stories]; however considering the drop and what I can find it sounds like more harm to the child was done by the fall - the dragging seems to be hard to pin down as to what dragging consisted of.


As for those on facebook; that kind of witch-hunt is more often just a soapbox for people to moan and complain or campaign. They are mob rule and tend to quickly get very very stupid and angry and hostile without much thought. Especially since a lot of "FACTS" get thrown around very quickly (and then a few cheap news sites report on those as fact which adds weight to them).

Kids do get out from under their parents eyes; it happens. In general things like this don't happen. 3 incidents on a global scale is pretty small especially when they are spread out over many years. We are far from an epidemic - the problem is that when these situations do occur and the animal is highly endangered any loss of the animal is harshly felt - and yet is likely the most minor point that will be noticed by the public.




The subject of protection; we can argue about the value of human VS animal life. But in general most species are very centric to their own kind. Even more so when emotions run high - you would never get away leaving the child to risk for the sake of the gorilla. Even though we cloud lose billions of people and still be a viable highly populated species at a global scale. Even in some African countries they are only starting to turn to shoot to kill policies for wildlife protection in reserves (and its taken hundreds of ranger deaths to get there).

Tranquilizers don't down instantly and there's always a period of pain and confusion when they hit; it would likely have made things worse considering the distance of gorilla and child. A bullet that kills at least has a greater potential to down in one hit if shot right.
 
sooty mangabey said:
Without knowing yet the full details of what happened here, I would suggest that those who are taking to social media to condemn the parents- and there are a lot of them! - have possibly never raised children themselves. However good parents are at their jobs, however careful, mistakes do happen: a child slips away, attention is lost for a few minutes - and, 99.9% of the time nothing untoward occurs. Occasionally, as here, there are tragic consequences.

Of course, it may be that the parents were negligent, that they encouraged bad behaviour, that they are, in some way, to blame. But to assume that this is the case without being in full possession of the facts is, I think, intemperate.
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Thank you Sooty, yes you are 100% correct. Also I have googled "intemperate" and this word could describes my response, however I don't drink alcohol. I do also take the killing of a innocent gorilla very seriously.

I can't imagine how challenging it must have been for the shooter to pull the trigger.
 
The social commentary on a variety of news-specific websites is indeed ridiculous, as young children are impossible to watch 100% of the time. It shocks me to read statements referring to the shooting of the parents or the quest for blame when the entire episode was obviously nothing more than a tragic accident. Regardless of how endangered the animal is whenever there is a similar incident, in every case the life of a human will be placed above that of the caged animal. One minor miracle is that the boy survived the fall as there was no grass or natural substrate to break his descent.

Here is an excellent photo of the moat in the almost 40 year-old exhibit:

http://www.zoochat.com/556/may-2012-western-lowland-gorilla-exhibit-273942/

Here is another photo of the moat that shows a small waterfall:

http://www.zoochat.com/556/cincinnati-zoo-gorilla-exhibit-41638/
 
This is an awful situation for all to concerned and the public lust for blame and blood doesn't help.

I can't help thinking that the zoo's decision must be considered in the context of the recent tiger/keeper tragedy at the Palm Beach Zoo where a different decision was made about the animal. The media and blogospehere wasn't content with that decision either.
 
Thanks for that photo Andrew. The fencing is lighter than I'd have imagined, given the drop; but it very much sets the scene. An unobtrusive wire barrier and hedge and a large drop - all three being the barrier to people. Excepting kids who push forward and get too close to the edge.

In hindsight we can certainly say it was an accident waiting to happen at some point - as mentioned above a thicker brambly or otherwise spiky hedge might have suited to give enough deterrent.
 
If the exhibit has been like this since 1978, I think it a little harsh to describe it as an accident waiting to happen. No doubt changes will be made to the barrier but this has been a tragic accident and I cannot see zoo planning being at fault.
 
dean said:
I hope the child realises the result of his actions at some future date and acts accordingly.
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Wise words because as we all know children always think about outcomes of their actions. Get real my friend he's a child who has been involved in a traumatic experience. Yes it's a sad outcome. But let's not go on a witch hunt.
 
zooman said:
What responsibility do the parents have!
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I hope parents are charged with bad parenting, and additionally the zoo sues them for the cost of the rescue plus estimated monetary value of the killed gorilla. And this harsh punishment will deter others from irresponsible behavior in zoos.

Zoos are not meant to and can not protect visitors against their own irresponsibility.
 
Jurek7 said:
I hope parents are charged with bad parenting, and additionally the zoo sues them for the cost of the rescue plus estimated monetary value of the killed gorilla. And this harsh punishment will deter others from irresponsible behavior in zoos.

Zoos are not meant to and can not protect visitors against their own irresponsibility.
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Do you know that the accident was the "fault" of the parents? It's very easy to respond with understandable emotion, but the facts of the incident need to be established before the lynch mob is set on the boy, or his parents, or even the zoo.
 
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